Section 11

11. Thus the Intellectual-Principle, in the act of knowing the
Transcendent, is a manifold. It knows the Transcendent in
very essence
but, with all its effort to grasp that prior as a pure unity, it
goes forth amassing successive impressions, so that, to it,
the object
becomes multiple: thus in its outgoing to its object it is not
[fully realised] Intellectual-Principle; it is an eye that
has not yet
seen; in its return it is an eye possessed of the multiplicity which
it has itself conferred: it sought something of which it found the
vague presentment within itself; it returned with something else,
the manifold quality with which it has of its own act invested the
simplex.

If it had not possessed a previous impression of the
Transcendent,
it could never have grasped it, but this impression, originally of
unity, becomes an impression of multiplicity; and the
Intellectual-Principle, in taking cognisance of that multiplicity,
knows the Transcendent and so is realized as an eye possessed of its
vision.

It is now Intellectual-Principle since it actually holds its
object, and holds it by the act of intellection: before, it was no
more than a tendance, an eye blank of impression: it was in motion
towards the transcendental; now that it has attained, it has become
Intellectual-Principle henceforth absorbed; in virtue of this
intellection it holds the character of Intellectual-Principle, of
Essential Existence and of Intellectual Act where, previously, not
possessing the Intellectual Object, it was not Intellectual
Perception, and, not yet having exercised the Intellectual
Act, it was
not Intellectual-Principle.

The Principle before all these principles is no doubt the first
principle of the universe, but not as immanent: immanence is not for
primal sources but for engendering secondaries; that which stands as
primal source of everything is not a thing but is distinct from all
things: it is not, then, a member of the total but earlier than all,
earlier, thus, than the Intellectual-Principle- which in
fact envelops
the entire train of things.

Thus we come, once more, to a Being above the
Intellectual-Principle and, since the sequent amounts to no less
than the All, we recognise, again, a Being above the All. This
assuredly cannot be one of the things to which it is prior.
We may not
call it "Intellect"; therefore, too, we may not call it "the
Good," if
"the Good" is to be taken in the sense of some one member of the
universe; if we mean that which precedes the universe of things, the
name may be allowed.

The Intellectual-Principle is established in multiplicity; its
intellection, self-sprung though it be, is in the nature of
something added to it [some accidental dualism] and makes it
multiple:
the utterly simplex, and therefore first of all beings, must, then,
transcend the Intellectual-Principle; and, obviously, if this had
intellection it would no longer transcend the Intellectual-Principle
but be it, and at once be a multiple.